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I definitely think that's one way to look at it, and it's probably the answer to the question as I raised it. But the reason I raised it was more to bring up that I think there's this subconscious idea that liking less wrestling is a sign of better tastes. I just don't see it that way. The fan who is harder to please isn't so much the fan who always has a point, or whose recommendations are always going to be good. But I do think we've biased, without intention, having "higher standards" over having better standards. I'm not sure I'm formulating this in a way that makes sense or if this is even the thread to hash it out. Just something on my mind. In a way it goes hand in hand with my first response. If seeing more and knowing more raises the bar, then higher standards would indicate that this is someone who knows his stuff. I agree with what you're saying--tearing down something that other people like isn't any more intellectually demanding than building up something that other people don't--but it's also human nature. If a woman looks in the mirror and likes what she sees, and then she goes out and someone tells her "Hey, you have a really big nose," and someone else tells her that she has a pretty smile, what do you think is going to stick with her more? Now let's say that she herself has never really thought much of her teeth. And the person who complimented it is a cheery, optimistic soul who tries to see the beauty in everything and make people feel better when they're down. Instead of a dumbass analogy, let me try a wrestling example. One of my favorite wrestlers is La Fiera. Someone writes a scathing review of Fiera vs Negro Casas, which I think is one of Fiera's best matches. Someone else calls Fiera vs Atlantis a lost classic, one of the best championship matches in CMLL history. With the first one, maybe it would hit a nerve somewhere inside of me and have me thinking, "Hmm, did I miss something when I watched that match? Was I too busy marking out to actually pay attention to it? Maybe I was just biased towards one of my guys." With the second one, well, maybe they'd have a logical point, and they could frame things in a way that made the match read like a classic, but it's going to be hard to override the memory of watching that match and not loving it. Tendency toward self doubt might just be a personal thing, but I think it's a lot easier to for love to be torn down than to be created out of nowhere--so a nasty review about a match I thought was outstanding is going to hit home a lot more than a glowing review of one for which my primary recollection of it will be not enjoying it. And if it's from a person who tries to see the good in everything, my thinking is going to be that I might have to TRY to like this match in order to actually like it, and that's just not how I do things. (Sorry for the double post. I didn't know whether that or a long post in which I replied to two different people would have been a bigger breach of message board etiquette.)

Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but I can recall people talking about Dandy vs Angel Azteca. Atlantis vs Blue Panther not so much. I haven't been on this board very long, so maybe I wasn't here for what you're referencing, but the only detractors I can remember for Dandy vs Angel basically came at it from a "Nick Bockwinkel wouldn't have wrestled like this" way rather than actually criticizing the things that made that match unique. It felt like annoyance that something like THAT was challenging Flair, Steamboat, Misawa and Kawada. That speaks to Dandy vs Angel having a reputation. No real need to take Atlantis and Blue Panther down a peg, their match isn't threatening Flair. We should do that for a thread though, consensus classics from everywhere (by "we" I mean "one of you," of course).

Isn't it fairly simple? The more you've been exposed to, the harder it is for something to feel different enough that it changes the way you think about anything, and the more top level stuff you see, the tougher the comparison becomes for everything else. To use an example, Atlantis vs Blue Panther from 1991 used to be considered one of the classic matches from Mexico, especially if you're just limiting it to championship style. Then you go to the thread about it on this site, with all the posts in it coming within the past five years, and it may not even rank as a consensus four star match in there. Could be that it's a different set of opinions coming from people with different tastes, sure. But I'd guess that it's more that there's so much readily available to watch now, even just in the category of championship wrestling from Mexico, that the match doesn't stand out like it did back when the field was smaller.

Huh, I was reading this thread and thinking how Peña was more of a McMahonlike candidate, but then a lot of his booking feels overwrought to me. His biggest achievements IMO were making the EMLL easily the number one promotion in the country (largely on the strength of TV) and then creating a promotion from out of nowhere that overnight became bigger than the one he'd just helped build up, and had a different way of doing business than any promotion in Mexico. I don't know that either of these falls under what would traditionally be called booking. No doubt the wrestling programs that he booked helped these things happen, though.

Kato Kung Lee: Panamanian martial arts expert who was neither a brilliant athlete nor a master technician, but none of that mattered because he was always right. I always side with Kato in his matches. Once he lost his mask he had the look of this little grumpy old man who'd seen everything there was to see and didn't have time for any shit from the rudos, even if they hadn't done anything yet. And he was right, because they were rudos, so they were going to do something that merited a backhand from the old man. Someone like Satanico could win a million titles and have the Diablo Velazco seal of approval, but he didn't have a black belt so to Kato he was nothing. Sometimes he'd chokeslam Negro Casas to hell, which was funny to see coming from a tiny guy like Kato. More people should have treated Casas that way. El Supremo: Immobile bodybuilder type who the EMLL inexplicably used as a base for flashy young tecnicos in the early 1990s. It shouldn't have worked but he was actually okay at it. Luchawiki lists him as nearly 50 for that part of his career, but there's no way that's right. Got one of the most transparent bumps up to main event level ever in the last few months of 1992 so he could drop his mask to Pierroth. That was a fun feud, even if it was mostly on the back of Pierroth (Supremo was a better base than a brawler), and it probably would have been more fun if it weren't a sign of how bad things had become for the company in such a short amount of time. Supremo pretty much had three moves, the punch, the knee, and the suplex. Virtually disappeared after losing the mask, but not before growing a mustache and looking a bit like a movie star from the 1950s. He was popular enough to inspire an unrelated wrestler to take on the name of Supremo II. All three masks he won in his career are pretty cool: Robot R-2 and Lawrence de Arabia, because those are amazing gimmicks, and Guerrero Azteca because that match somehow ended up on Youtube, and if nothing else it's a pretty cool ringside look at a fairly big mask vs mask match from the 1980s outside of the typical venues.

Just a heads up, the match listed as the mask vs mask in the match discussion section of the site seems to be the mano a mano from the week before Triplemania instead of the big one.

I think Fame was the Macho Man's best entrance song. It's So Easy for Heavy Metal and Pelo Suelto for Emilio Charles are some of my favorites. Pelo Suelto in particular isn't something I'd ever have thought of for entrance music but Emilio made it work. I remember Rey Jr. coming out to A Little Respect. That was bad. Worse was whoever it was who used Dangerous by Roxette in Monterrey. Didn't Rick Martel have some hilariously unwrestling song in WCW? I actually like a lot of the generic WCW songs though, like Psicosis' and Alex Wright's.

This was one of those matches that had a lot of good moments which didn't really fit together. I can see people liking a lot of them, but at the end of the day you have an apuestas match in which things started off almost gentlemanly, Sangre Chicana threw away a fall for no real reason, and Fiera won with a fluky and botched rollup while not looking like a conquering hero. Even in the prematch video package, included to make this feel like a bigtime event, something felt off, as you could see that it wasn't even Chicana who turned on Fiera first. And the bottle shot made no sense. It was a cool image and everything, but it's not like Fiera had been making a comeback or done anything to piss Chicana off. Why wantonly pick a moment in the second fall to take all that anger out on him? I guess you could argue that it fit with Chicana taking random breaks from the fighting to talk to members of the audience, but it's still the weakest way possible for a tecnico to even things up. On a positive note, Fiera's selling really was outstanding, and I liked how committed they were to those ribs. I'd have preferred wild violence to working over a body part, but if you decide to go the latter route then at least make it mean something. Less than the sum of its parts match.

Just two weeks after his failed title challenge Fiera found himself in another one on one. He cut a promo about continuing Blue Panther's mission of ridding Mexico of its foreigners while flocked by some giddy rudo fans, and then he spent the first fall putting on a rudo masterpiece. He kicked Black Magic's ass all over the ring and treated him like the newcomer he was, and made rudo referee Gato Montini his half-witting accomplice. The clothesline with the chain was pure brilliance, and as a token of appreciation he clapped right in Montini's face afterward, just to let the ref know how much of a sucker he'd been. Everything in the ring was under Fiera's control. After the fall he wore the biggest, smuggest grin on his face while even getting some Me-xi-co chants. And then by the end of the match he was threatening to kick Montini, the man he'd figured was in his back pocket, right in the face, and screaming about how it was all bullshit, that a man of only physique could never defeat someone who truly understands the sport. By this point the crowd was chanting for Magic, much to Fiera's shock, and he pretty much sealed the deal when he backed out of a postmatch fight just like Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13. His contemptuous look back towards the ring would have made the Hitman proud, too. So by the end of the match Fiera hadn't just put over Magic, he'd given him the crowd and told a twenty minute story of his own unraveling. The actual wrestling wasn't that interesting but for performance and meeting the booking's goal this was excellent.

Fierathon 2017 continues with this mano a mano from both guys' postprime. Emilio came out to a CMLLized version of Pelo Suelto that was pretty cool. One of the comments on Youtube says that he sang it, but I don't know about that. It didn't sound like his voice. Fiera wore a jacket that just said "WRESTLING" on the back and had Van Halen entrance music, so I think the early advantage went to Emilio. He did a really good job beating the hell out of Fiera, one of the better one on one performances I can recall from him actually, and Fiera again bumped and sold as well as you could expect. It really does impress me how a guy who I think of as SUCH a nasty rudo can be so sympathetic. But then again that's wrestling. This was also a match in which he got violent for his comeback, although I could have done without the Randy Savage arm twirls. The finishing stretch seemed abbreviated and I thought Fiera won the second fall a bit too easily, but what really stopped this from being anything special was that it's 2017 and I can look it up and see that they had a hair vs hair in two weeks, so what does it matter who wins this one? Still a good match and a good Fiera performance, no small feat in 1994 CMLL.

A couple of months ago, there was a thread about favorite title reigns. I said Atlantis' with the NWA middleweight championship was one of the best but lamented that all it meant TVwise was the big defense against Blue Panther and then just a bunch of failed challenges by Emilio. Shame on me, because I forgot about this match, featuring one of my main men going for Atlantis' belt at the biggest show of the year. Here we have Fiera in the rudo character that made him one of my main men, but we also have him in title match mode. The technical side of La Fiera isn't one that he showed off very often. Perhaps breaking in as a Sangre Chicana protege taught him that no one really pays to see that stuff, or maybe he just wasn't that proficient with his holds. Either way, he couldn't hide from it here, so instead they worked a good, honest hold for hold first fall, with spots like Fiera talking shit before the bell, Atlantis armdragging him off a handshake, and Fiera breaking a hold with a kick to the face thrown in to establish some heat between the two (as mentioned above, Fiera was filling in for Bestia Salvaje so they hadn't interacted before this). It takes guts to work an old school wrestling fall in front of a huge crowd waiting on the big mask vs mask main event, and not only did they work a terrific fall but the crowd stayed with them the whole way. Atlantis seems like a guy who sort of gets the backhanded compliment of being able to hang with legitimately great rudos, but this is a fall I'd use as an example of him taking someone up a level, as I've never seen Fiera have another extended technical exchange this good. Fiera for his part did a great job selling, especially on Atlantis' knucklelock counter and pumping headlock. Eventually they established that Atlantis was the better man on the mat, and when Fiera tried to up the pace he got burned. I don't know if it was something special they were doing because this was a big show, but between falls they stayed in the arena instead of going to commercial, which gave us a great shot of a disgusted Fiera shaking his head in disbelief about how the first fall ended. It was a wonderful bit of acting, especially as he had no one to play off for it (for some reason, Pierroth didn't come out to second him until after the second fall). What a dedicated performer. The second fall was back and forth and this time it was Fiera who scored with the big dive, knocking Atlantis out on the arena floor and giving a half smug, half exhausted pose when he was the only one to make it back to the ring ahead of the count. Outside, Atlantis' arm was clearly messed up from the dive, an ominous lead in to the deciding fall. Unfortunately, although they did use the arm to create some danger for Atlantis' reign, they did it in the least exciting way possible. Fiera worked on the arm the way he would have in the first fall of a mano a mano, slowly and with no science or nearfalls. The worst was when Atlantis was making a comeback and Fiera caught him with a desperate foul, but instead of going for the pin he just loosely applied a cangrejo, which Atlantis escaped without a fight. I liked when Panther started tearing at Hijo del Santo's arm in their match from April 2000, so it wasn't the armwork that was the problem, it was how dull it was and how the pace fell back from where it had been in the second and even the first fall. And the win came out of nowhere. Not in the sense that Atlantis got it suddenly and surprisingly, but that you can usually tell when they're building up to the finish, and here I couldn't. I don't know. It was a good match, really good and maybe even great for the first two falls, but the fall that should be the most thrilling of all was the most boring. The Kahoz match was better, even though it was a lesser version of Fiera against a lesser opponent than the one he had here. The one saving grace that the third fall had was that afterward I was annoyed how they weren't even bothering to switch to a shot of the beaten Fiera, before finally he got up, sarcastically clapped for Atlantis' effort, and then told him to go fuck himself. Truly a legend of the sport.

I've never found a way to accept how Fiera changed after returning to the tecnico side in '93. He spent 1992 fouling and chainwhipping the good guys, and then all of a sudden that violent side just disappeared. You'd think he could at least put the fear of death in his old rudo buddies when making his comebacks against them, but it didn't really happen that way. This is decisively NOT a match that challenges that perception of him, but what it does do is show how effective his approach to working tecnico could be. He spent most of the first two falls selling. Some of it was a bit hammy, like when he tried to jog it off and collapsed, but it was clear that Fiera was in serious trouble so in the end it worked. Well, that in conjunction with the blood. When you spill so much blood that you're wiping it out of your eyes between falls, that goes a long way towards making it look like it's going to be a hell of a time trying to survive. Kahoz has always been one of my picks for most generic wrestler--and that's with his mask, here he didn't even have that--but he really gave it to Fiera here. He started off a bit methodical and got more vicious the longer the match went on and the closer Fiera came to the end. He even got some good sneers in on the ringside fans. Maybe losing the mask actually helped. Having one of the great bumpers taking his stuff made it all the better. There was a typically CMLL-ish bit of controversy when, after Fiera tied the match with his spinkick and his still beautiful frogsplash, he collapsed in the corner and the doctor came over to see if the bloodloss was too much for him to be able to continue. Kahoz was ready to jump right back on him, but the referee held him back while the doctor inspected the cut, and in the end the doc just wiped the blood off and gave them the okay to keep going. If I were Kahoz I'd have thrown a fit over that, and sure enough in short order he was busted open too. Things were going great, with Fiera getting him right in the head with a tope and Kahoz bumping big off it, but not long after that came the finish. I really think that's what kept this from being a genuinely great match. It was a bit too soon, so it didn't feel like they'd really given all they had to give, but more than that it was just a terrible finish. Picking the guy up at two and then immediately getting pinned is always awful. I'm sure it was clever the first time someone did it, but every time since then it's just been a face saving copout. But most of all I just can't buy Fiera needing mercy to beat a guy like Kahoz. Fiera was a better wrestler, plain and simple. Hell, go back four years and he'd have pinned the man with one foot. Even with the beating, the selling, and the blood, Kahoz actually winning could never happen. There's no way Fiera had to steal one like that. Kahoz did dick all after this, so it's not like he needed the protecting, and he even had an out with the way the doctor handled things between falls. This was still a hell of a job by both guys. Fiera's one of my favorites, but I'd never have thought he could have a match this good this late in his career against an opponent the caliber of Kahoz. And they did all this at Arena Coliseo, not exactly known for its brutal wager matches by this point in time. I seriously can't think of a better Arena Coliseo apuestas match, although I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

That looks like a good call. It's kind of hard to tell with the VQ being so different for the Youtube uploads of the two matches, but it seems like the same crowd as for Hijo del Santo, Chamaco Valaguez and Cachorro Mendoza vs Fuerza Guerrera, Talisman and Jerry Estrada, which is also purported to have taken place on the March 9 event. The six man from March 2 seemed to set up a title match, too. With the scarcity of video from that era I'd guess that it likely came from a show that we have video of. Then again I have no idea how reliable the sources are for 1984 lineups. I don't think Satanico vs Lizmark was listed for that date until earlier this year.

This might be true but I have a feeling the simpler explanation is that Meltzer (and his contemporaries) have just not seen much of 90s CMLL Negro Casas and might be basing the assessment on a few Japanese matches. Yeah, I was just spitballing there. Casas still had a high workrate in the nineties, so it's not like he turned into Sangre Chicana or anything. He probably wasn't the physical phenom he was in the decade prior, just because now the measuring stick was guys like Misterio and Psicosis. If I had to guess the most likely explanation would be Meltzer remembering how dull the CMLL was for a large part of the decade and lumping Casas in with all that, plus I imagine at the time Konnan was always explaining to him that the promotion and its wrestlers were stuck in the past. It's just weird because I don't ever remember him being negative about Casas in his newsletters from the time he's now talking about.

Well, that could just mean he sucked in Japan. With how much he idolized Choshu, I doubt he went over there and halfassed it. I remember that in his actual Observers from the nineties Meltzer would frequently write things like "Negro Casas, who is already said to be the best worker in the history of Mexico..." from when Casas was as young as his early thirties. I seem to remember him being particularly impressed with Casas' performance at this show (and if the attendance details are correct then the entire crowd went home happy that night). It's been a while, though, so I might not be remembering right. From most 1980s footage of Casas that's made its way online, he looks like he did start emphasizing his character much more in the nineties, and maybe the sheet community interpreted that as Casas putting in less work. Besides Kdawg (who never worked in the same major promotion as Casas) who are Meltzer's Mexican sources? I think Steve Sims still liked his nineties work.

Current favorite wrestler to watch: My opinion of Fuerza Guerrera has gone up I think every match I've seen from him in the past year or thereabouts Last fun match you saw: Random six man in which Jerry Estrada and Rey Misterio Sr. fought, good rivalry even if the one straight up match that I've seen wasn't good. Wrestler you want to see more of: Americo Rocca, Gran Cochisse, I'm not exactly holding my breath though Last live show attended (if applicable/different from last time you answered): Haven't been to a show in over five years. All I remember from my last one is one of my friends shouting violent advice to the wrestler he wanted to win. I can vividly recall "reach into his chest and slowly crush his heart", "eat his tongue" and "try to constrict his breathing", and the rest appear to be lost to history. Match you're most looking forward to watching: I'm trying to trade with this guy who has some stuff that looks good, but he responds to emails about every third day so my progress has been pretty sluggish. Get with it, guy. Last fun interview/promo you saw: It's been so long since I went on a Youtube kick of wrestling promos, what is wrong with me, have I changed? Last interesting thing you read about wrestling: Steve Sims saying (in 1992) that Atlantis was a guy who wrestled to the level of his opponent. I immediately thought "no, no, that's not right" and then spent a long time trying to think of solid, inarguable counterexamples. I still don't 100% agree but I can't say it didn't change how I look at Atlantis a bit. Last worthwhile podcast you listened to: I can't do podcasts, partly for the same reasons I avoid listening to other people's conversations on the train. Also if I try to multitask the podcast becomes background noise, and if I try to focus on just the podcast my eyes become bored, find something to look at, and reduce the podcast to background noise. Most fun you've had watching wrestling lately: I don't know, I haven't been stringently counting my funs recently Favorite recent post on this board: The one thing from this site that stuck with me the most was that person who was upset about his .gifs being stolen. That's interesting to me, the culture of fans exactly reproducing stuff that other fans have made available, and the protectiveness of the original uploaders who sort of view it as their own. Favorite thing about the wrestling landscape in the past three months (if you live in the past, then go with your past three months of time-traveling): Hahaha, probably the Alvarados beating the hell out of Ultimo Guerrero's car. Wrestling still has some badass left in it.

This might be the most gallingly selfish performance I have ever seen in a wrestling match. Satanico was losing in two falls, so he took ninety-nine percent of the match and sold zero percent of what little he let Octagon have. Ric Flair has to deal with breakdowns of random jobber matches, but Satanico, touted as an alternative for the number one spot, somehow avoids getting knocked for something like this, in a main event against one of the biggest wrestlers in the company. It looks worse when you compare what Satanico did here with what Fuerza Guerrera did against the same opponent, in the same year, in the same arena, with the same stipulations (albeit over three falls rather than just two).

Are we going to pretend the 3:16 promo isn't vital to Austin eventually becoming the biggest thing around ? Just because the WWF didn't picked on it immediately ? To answer the bolded part : because he didn't. He didn't book alone during that period. Hell, like Charles said, Corny was around until as late as 1998, when the turnaround was already done and Austin was the hottest thing. Pritchard was also there. And of course, Vince himself. The filters aren't overstated. I'm not saying he didn't contribute, but Russo without filter got exposed immediately, and le's not go into "oh, but he couldn't do what he wanted in WCW" since it was the exact same shit in TNA. When you're a failure 95% of your whole career, when you can spot the patterns of his whole "creative spectrum" after going through his stints in details (and yeah, I've done that both for WCW and early TNA, the masochist that I am), it's easy to expose his way of thinking and writing. It's not like he's that creative to begin with (the word "creative" is so overrated anyway, especially in pro-wrestling). There's probably something to be said about some of his ideas going through the Vince filter, working with Austin & Rock & Foley, simply being repeated everywhere else because the guy had no notion of why it worked before (context, worker). Which is another proof, if needed, he's a clueless idiot. It was a great promo. It wasn't a ticket to automatic stardom. WWE history is littered with great promos that the company didn't capitalize on, or tried to and failed. No reason that Austin's couldn't have ended up on that list. Not that Russo was the only one who saw money in Austin (and I doubt he had anything to do with the decision to push Stone Cold Steve to begin with), but he wasn't given a guaranteed legend in the making, either. I wouldn't want Russo booking a promotion alone, ever, but he was the guy who seemed to convince Vince McMahon that Raw was boring and needed a new direction. None of the others who had the boss's ear, all of whom had been around for a while before Russo, could do this. McMahon certainly didn't realize it on his own. These are the filters, the guys who were responsible for 1996 Raw, not some infallible wrestling minds. Obviously Russo was never again able to diagnose a problem and change a promotion for the better, so maybe it was just luck that his idea for a wrestling show lined up with what the WWF's fans wanted. That and the fact that the WWF didn't miss a beat when he left the company don't help his case. I guess that just totally writing off Russo's SUCCESSFUL period as right place, right time feels like watching a good Ultimate Warrior match and giving 100% credit to the heel. Yeah, maybe he was totally carried, but it doesn't seem like there's much critical thought to that. It's easy and tidy to just say, "okay, it was a good match, but here's why Warrior is still useless." I don't have a high opinion of Russo's writing or booking abilities either but there was a time when his stuff was working, and I'd rather give him credit for that than find reasons that it doesn't count.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF. Not at all. Russo has jackshit to do with Austin cutting his 3:16 promo. And Cornette was still on the writing team as late as mid-1997 FWIW. The only guy who believes Russo created Austin & The Rock is Russo himself. He's been a proven failure for 15 years straight in two major companies (on every level). Oh yeah, the legendary promo that rocketed Stone Cold to a pay per view rematch with Marc Mero stardom, that's what cemented him as an all timer. When Russo started booking no one would have said that having Steve Austin and Rocky Maivia under your control in the WWF was an impossible situation to screw up. They became stars while he was booking. He booked segments and entire shows with the intention of making those guys look like stars. I am sure they could have become stars without him, but I am also sure that bad enough booking could have sunk them. Even with the oft mentioned filters he had there, it is not like Vince McMahon and company have a flawless record of separating good idea from bad ones. Like you said, the man has over fifteen years of failures to pick apart. Why rip him for the one brief period when he actually seemed to understand the wrestling landscape better than those around him? I am also unconvinced by the argument that WWE already employs plenty of boring listens, so why not add another? If I am looking to replace the unreliable meth addict who works at my store, that does not mean that I should consider hiring a serious alcoholic on the grounds that he cannot be any less dependable than the man I already have.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF. But forget that. The reason Cornette should be on something like this over Russo is that Cornette is a good talker and storyteller and Russo is not.

Tried to go for ones where it's actually kind of surprising that finding them has been fruitless so far. MS-1 vs El Dandy, January 20 1989 (the show from the week before is in circulation but not this one) Lizmark vs El Satanico, February 17 1989 (Friday Coliseo show so I imagine this was taped) El Satanico vs Fabuloso Blondy, April 7 1989 (we've got matches from the week before and from two weeks after, look at how much TV time Satanico got this year) El Dandy vs El Satanico, May 5 1989 (65-85% sure of the date, shows from the week before and week after are easy to find) Lizmark vs El Satanico, July 21 1989 (from the same show as this match, not sure why this one seems to be lost, boy did they love running this matchup) Emilio Charles Jr. vs El Satanico, June 1 1993 (Satanico's last match before jumping, minis match from this show aired on TV so cameras were at least in the arena) Ciclon Ramirez vs El Felino, June 18 1993 (another one where the previous and following shows are easy to get but this one isn't, made this list so SOMEONE has to have seen it) Dr. Wagner Jr. vs El Dandy, June 29 1993 (similar deal to the Emilio Charles match above) Jerry Estrada vs Heavy Metal, April 26 1994 (other matches from this show were shown in full but all I can find of the main event is about five minutes of highlights) Mascara Sagrada vs Black Cat, May 15 1994 (same deal as the match above) Jaque Mate vs La Fiera, October 28 1994 (I admit that probably no one else cares about unearthing this one) El Felino vs Mascara Magica, May 21 1996 (another one where there are filmed matches from this show but no trace of this one) A year ago I would have had Pirata Morgan vs MS-1 from 1991 on this list, but that one made its way to Youtube fairly recently, proving that there's still hope for these too. It's funny that 1989 is thought of as such a great year for the EMLL even with all of these matches missing.

I loved the holds that they applied. It was almost all the kind of elaborate stuff that you'd see in black and white 1960s highlights, and yet they found a way to make it flow and come up with sweet counters. That headscissors hammerlock from Pantera was awesome. And then in the second fall they impressed me with the way that they made it clear that Fuerza was taking control (namely through Pantera's selling), while still working a fairly even fall in which Fuerza was in danger of letting things slip away. I honestly cannot think of anything that I'd change about the first two falls, that's how good they were. The third fall had some terrific spots and close calls, but I thought it went on a bit too long, as the nearfalls over the last few minutes didn't seem any more dramatic than the ones from the middle of the fall. Still, they were cool nearfalls. Agreed on how important the match felt by the end and how consistently good the work was. There aren't a whole lot of matches showcasing Fuerza Guerrera, technician, and I think this is probably the best one for it. He looks like he has a funkier, older school style than most of his contemporaries. This is the kind of thing you'd use if you ever wanted to argue for Fuerza being the total package. Pantera was excellent too, which makes me wish he'd gotten more of a TV push during his career. I guess there wasn't much room at the time. Anyway, definitely one of the company's best matches of the year and a clear highlight in the dossier of Fuerza Guerrera.

Lizmark's run with the National Lightheavyweight belt from 1992-94. Quality TV matches against Jerry Estrada, Satanico, and Parka, with a really good defense at Triplemania I too. I also liked the match in which he won it, although I don't know if that would count as part of his reign or Universo 2000's. Unfortunately the match in which he was finally dethroned was just meaningless gimmicky AAA stuff, which set the tone for how the belt would be treated in the future. Atlantis's NWA Middleweight title run was on the same level, although other than the famous Blue Panther match all of his televised defenses were against the same person, and the title changes at each end weren't for TV. On the house show circuit he supposedly had championship matches with Dandy and Satanico that ran over half an hour, but who knows with that stuff? It's still an impressive list of defenses. There are plenty of reigns that look like that, though, with a whole bunch of matches we'll never get to see. Look at what Hijo del Santo did with the UWA World Lightweight title. I know that Virus's time with the CMLL Super Lightweight title was generally a happy period for current fans.

Mexico only. Other wrestling I watch and like, but, like, I couldn't tell you which is the best Flair vs Steamboat or anything. When I watch stuff from outside of Mexico I just sit back and enjoy. 1983 MOTY: Sangre Chicana vs MS-1, September 23 Runner-up: Sangre Chicana, Mocho Cota and La Fiera vs El Satanico, MS-1 and Espectro Jr, September 30 1984 MOTY: El Satanico vs Gran Cochisse, September 14 Runner-up: Americo Rocca vs Mocho Cota, January 27 1985 MOTY: El Solitario vs Dr. Wagner, December 1 Runner-up: Atlantis vs El Faraon, March 22 1986 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Espanto Jr, August 31 Runner-up: La Fiera vs Babe Face, August 15 1987 MOTY: Villano III vs Rambo, October 25 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas, July 18 1988 MOTY: Espanto Jr. vs El Hijo del Santo, April 10(?) Runner-up: Lola Gonzalez vs Pantera Sureña, December 9 1989 MOTY: Atlantis, El Dandy and Mascara Sagrada vs Emilio Charles Jr, MS-1 and Tierra Viento y Fuego, November 24 Runner-up: Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata and El Brazo vs Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala and Verdugo, November 10 1990 MOTY: Angel Azteca vs El Dandy, June 1 Runner-up: Fuerza Guerrera vs El Pantera, May 4 or 11 1991 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Brazo de Oro, January 13 Runner-up: Fuerza Guerrera vs Octagon, February 1 1992 MOTY: Negro Casas vs El Dandy, July 3 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo vs Espanto Jr, May 14 1993 MOTY: Lizmark vs Jerry Estrada, June 18 Runner-up: Negro Casas vs La Fiera, October 1 1994 MOTY: Javier Cruz vs Ciclon Ramirez, June 10 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo and Octagon vs Eddy Guerrero and Love Machine, November 6 1995 MOTY: Psicosis vs Rey Misterio Jr, September 22 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo, Rey Misterio Jr. and Octagon vs Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther and Psicosis, March 17 1996 MOTY: El Dandy vs Black Warrior, October 15 Runner-up: Not sure 1997 MOTY: Atlantis vs Blue Panther, December 5 Runner-up: Cibernetico, December 30 1998 I've never watched a great match from 1998. Parka vs Pierroth is just clips (with much less shown than clipped matches like Wagner vs Solitario or Rambo vs Villano from 1987), and I have not seen either of the Olimpico vs Halcon Negro matches. 1999 MOTY: Fuerza Guerrera vs Mike Segura, November 4 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo and Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr, March 19 2000 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther, April 9 Runner-up: Atlantis vs Villano III, March 17 2001 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs La Parka, December 23 Runner-up: Not sure Once we get into this century I'm pretty much stumped.

I actually thought the third fall felt like it needed a big explosion that never happened. There was that cool moment when Chicana was banging punches off Satanico as he covered up, and soon after they went back to doing spots that felt like they were from the first two falls. Same pacing, same intensity. On the other hand, when I was trying to do top tens for each year with comprehensive TV from Mexico, this match ended up being a late cut for 1989. After this watch, it would make the list if I redid that.